A California man has enlisted the help of a Chicago-based law firm to file a complaint against Kanye West and Jay-Z’s TIDAL service, over misleading The Life of Pablo tweets.
Justin Baker-Rhett and Edelson PC law firm claim that West misled customers about the exclusivity of his most recent album, promising it would only be available on TIDAL. Six weeks later however, The Life of Pablo was posted Apple Music and Spotify.
My album will never never never be on Apple. And it will never be for sale… You can only get it on Tidal.
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
Baker-Rhett argues Kanye’s tweets were tactics to boost membership while TIDAL was “quietly teetering on the brink of collapse.” With the lure of a free month trial, the lawsuit claims “consumers were uniformly tricked into handling over their private data and credit card information by a singular mistruth.”
“In reality, neither Mr. West nor S. Carter Enterprises [Jay Z’s company] ever intended The Life of Pablo to run exclusively on the Tidal platform,” it reads. “To the contrary, they — knowing that Tidal was in trouble but not wanting to invest their own money to save the company — chose to fraudulently induce millions of American consumers into paying for Tidal’s rescue.”
Kanye West's "Saint Pablo" finally hits Apple Music! ??? https://t.co/LHRosfdshW pic.twitter.com/pUTWufMAXO
— REVOLT TV (@RevoltTV) April 14, 2016
Edelson PC founder and CEO Jay Edelson told Rolling Stone “Kanye has the power to send one tweet out into the world and get 2 million people to act on it. This suit is about holding him accountable when he abuses that power.”
Since its release, “Tidal’s subscriber numbers had tripled, streaming numbers were through the roof and Tidal had collected the personal information, credit card numbers, and social media information of millions of deceived consumers,” the lawsuit adds. “As a result, Tidal’s valuation – the lifeblood of any new startup – soared” argues the suit.
The lawsuit calls for the deletion of Jason Baker-Rhett’s personal information, and any one else who joins the class action suit, plus $5 million in damages.
Also all Good Fridays songs will be on Tidal. Me and Kendrick got 40 songs and me and Young Thug got 40 songs. 40/40 club!!!
— KANYE WEST (@kanyewest) February 15, 2016
In addition, Kanye still has not added any more GOOD Friday songs to TIDAL, as promised in the tweet above.
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